Remember Me This Way Page 13

  In the early hours, I hear music, plangent and slow, eerily reaching across the gardens from the cul-de-sac behind. The words are just out of reach, reverberating, bouncing against garage doors.

  I get out of bed, extricating myself from small limbs, and cross to the window to listen. ‘I Wanna Be Loved’. Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Zach’s favourite song. Here it is again. Light pollution has turned the sky apricot. A white moon slips behind an orange cloud. I push up the sash and lean out, straining to catch every note, but the music stops.

  They are awake, all three of them, at five but I find things to do – TV and colouring – before it’s ten, a decent enough time to drop them home. I’m in a hurry. I don’t want to put Peggy out, but my train to Brighton leaves at ten thirty.

  ‘Oh,’ Peggy says when she sees us at the door. ‘You’re early. Rob and I were about to go and have breakfast.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. I could look after them again at the weekend? It’s just I have a busy day.’

  ‘A busy day?’ She frowns, uncomprehending. ‘Doing what?’

  I flush, swing back from the door frame to hide my annoyance. ‘Meeting a friend,’ I say.

  ‘Oooh.’ She purses her mouth suggestively. ‘That new teacher Jane was telling me about?’

  I laugh. ‘No.’

  ‘Who then?’

  A car toots, idling in the street, and Peggy waves. ‘How was Quiz Night?’ she shouts to the passenger, who has rolled down their window. I escape before she can ask me anything else.

  I drive home, park in the nearest space at the end of the road and let Howard into the garden. I should have asked Nell if she minded me bringing a dog, but I didn’t have the courage. The house is a mess – stuff everywhere. The sofa bed’s still pulled out in the study. No time now. I’ll tidy it when I come home.

  As I leave the house, I notice a young woman out of the corner of my eye. She is sitting on the ground, against the railings, her legs out across the pavement. She is wearing shorts over ripped black tights, those long, thin plimsolls with no heels the girls at school wear, a leatherette jacket slung over her shoulder. Prison visitors often hang around in the street, or on the edge of the common, having a last fag, waiting for the welcome centre to open.

  I walk briskly to the end of the road and am waiting for the lights to change at the pedestrian crossing when I hear footsteps and a cry: ‘Oi! Don’t ignore me!’

  I turn. The girl is standing right by me. Close to, I see she has long limbs, a precise oval face and an upturned nose with a scattering of small spots. I catch an expensive scent, shampoo or body lotion of basil and lemongrass. And not leatherette, a real leather jacket.

  And with a rush, I realise who she is. Not a grumpy girlfriend or teenage mum, but Alan and Victoria Murphy’s daughter.

  ‘Onnie!’ I say. ‘Hello!’

  She flicks a sheet of dip-dyed hair forward over one shoulder as if to hide her face. ‘I was waiting for you to come home,’ she says, ‘and you, like, walked past me. Twice.’

  ‘You’ve come to see me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, widening her eyes slightly as if I’m being dim.

  I almost smile, despite feeling so disconcerted, but manage not to. Her tone is off, but you often find that with shy kids. What comes across as rudeness is often acute embarrassment. They find it hard to open their own mouths. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t see you. I wasn’t expecting . . .’ I shake my head. ‘How did you know where I live?’

  ‘Zach gave me the address.’

  ‘When? Recently?’

  She frowns. ‘Not recently. Ages ago.’

  ‘And you . . . kept it? All this time?’

  She shrugs. ‘Yes.’

  I stare at her, baffled. Zach would never have given out our address. He was too protective of his privacy.

  ‘Didn’t you think I would come?’

  I grasp to make sense of her words. Is there a detail from last weekend I’m not remembering? It seems so long ago. Something about a work placement. Did I tell her to get in touch? Also, why did she wait for me outside the house? Why didn’t she knock?

  ‘Gosh, I’ve been so busy. I’m not sure.’ I look at my watch. ‘I’ve got a train to catch. Could we chat on the way to the station?’

  She shrugs.

  The green man is flashing and I begin to cross. ‘Are you in London for a while?’ I ask.

  She doesn’t answer. A horn sounds behind me. I reach the other side and turn to see Onnie stranded in the middle of the road, cars accelerating on either side of her.

  ‘Onnie!’ I reach out, my hands clutching at the empty air. An engine roars, a motorbike swerves.

  She waits for a gap, neck craning – a bus looms and passes – and then takes three quick strides, landing on the pavement with a small leap.

  ‘Oh,’ I say in pantomime relief. My fingers, finding her sleeve, clutch at the slippery leather. ‘What happened? Did you drop something?’

  ‘No. I just – I don’t know.’

  Her expression is closed, but she has gone red.

  ‘It’s a quickie, isn’t it, that traffic light?’

  ‘I wasn’t concentrating.’ She looks away and I realise she might be about to cry.

  I let a beat pass before looking at my watch. Not long until my train. I try to talk calmly. ‘I really do have to go,’ I say, moving my hand to her shoulder. I can feel her collarbone through her jacket. ‘Can you come back later?’

  ‘It’s OK.’ She pulls away. ‘I shouldn’t have come anyway.’

  ‘Of course you should have come.’ I smile at her. ‘If it was any other day, I’d drop everything, but I’ve got an appointment. You do understand, don’t you?’ I feel a bit worried about her suddenly. ‘I’m really pleased to see you,’ I add, ‘and if there is something I can help you with, I will.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Are you going to be in London for the day? Could we meet for a coffee this afternoon?’

  She blinks slowly. Her eyes, an arresting dark blue, are bloodshot. ‘I don’t drink coffee. I’m not allowed. Apparently, I get too—’ she shrugs to express contempt with whoever it is who has opinions on this matter ‘—agitated.’

  ‘Tea then,’ I say cheerfully.

  Onnie nods, twisting her lip.

  ‘Walk with me for a bit,’ I say. ‘I’m heading towards the station, which is probably the way you’ve just come.’

  ‘I took the tube. It’s literally miles from here.’

  ‘Sorry about that.’ I laugh again. ‘The train is better, or buses.’

  We are approaching the common now, passing the last row of Victorian houses. Onnie is carrying a small khaki rucksack and it bashes my shoulder with each step. She doesn’t say anything and there is a set to her mouth. Her eyes look sullen. I think how alienating teenagers can seem. Didn’t someone say she was eighteen? She seems younger than that. The important thing is not to be put off, to talk normally.

  ‘So what’s new?’ I say, cheerily.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What happened about that work placement? Did you persuade your mother to let you do it?’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’

  We have reached the main path and have turned towards the café and the tennis courts.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘The thing is she’d let me do it if I had someone sensible to stay with, so I thought I might take you up on your offer.’

  ‘My offer?’

  On the bowling green, two crows are stalking a squirrel.

  ‘You said . . . I could, like, rent a room?’

  I am fiddling with the gate that leads on to the football pitch. Rent a room? Did I offer to do that? I wouldn’t have done, surely? I don’t want someone in the house. Not in normal circumstances, and certainly not now.

  I’m trying to think how to let her down gently when I realise Onnie has stopped and is hanging back against the fence. Her arms are thin, the wrists narrow. She pulls the sl
eeves of her top down over her fingers, one after the other, hunches her shoulders. I check my watch again. Ten minutes until the train leaves.

  ‘It’s only two weeks,’ she says.

  ‘When does it start?’ I’m still holding the gate open for her. She doesn’t move. For a fraction of a second I wonder wildly if she has been sent to distract me, to delay me from Brighton, to make me miss my train.

  She shrugs nonchalantly, but she is flushed around the eyes. ‘Monday, but I was thinking I could come, like, today?’

  ‘I’m not sure . . .’

  ‘I could come on Sunday? Or even Monday. I could take the train in for the first day and come when I finish work.’

  I push my hands into my pockets, let the gate clang. ‘I don’t think it will work really. But listen – I might be able to find a solution. Can we talk about it later?’

  She looks up at the sky. A few drops are falling. ‘When will you be back?’

  ‘Early afternoon. That café we just passed: we could meet there at two?’

  She gazes out across the grass as if it were the frozen wastes of Antarctica. ‘What shall I do until then?’

  I want to say, ‘Go to the library – there’s a good one on Northcote Road, or read a book, or buy a newspaper.’ The expression in her eyes stops me. It isn’t belligerent or sulky, but lost. She looks so hopeless. All that money and privilege, all that pretence and posturing, she is no different from some of the young people at school – the ones who, for whatever reason, don’t know where to put themselves.

  I think about the house, and Howard alone in the kitchen. I think about Zach giving her our address. Did he feel sorry for her, too? I find myself rummaging in my bag for my keys. ‘Listen, let yourself in now. I used to have a spare key hidden, but I’ve lost it. Take these. You can keep the dog company. There is bread, cheese, a few slices of left-over pizza in the fridge. It’s a bit messy, I didn’t have time to clean up, but make yourself at home. I’ll see you when I get back. If you need to go out at all, hide the keys under the plant pot.’

  She takes the key ring and dangles it so casually on her middle finger, I want to snatch it straight back. Oh God. What have I just done?

  She shrugs as if she might do what I suggest, or she might not. ‘Cool,’ she says.

  Sunlight flickers through the high arched roof of Brighton Station and outside, on the forecourt, patches of blue sky are poking between the clouds. A family is consulting a map. Teenagers of different sizes hover by the entrance to Fitness First, sharing a cigarette.

  Pete and Nell’s house is only a short walk behind the station, up the hill, in the middle of a pretty terrace. The front door is sea-green and opens directly on to the pavement. I feel nervous, off kilter, waiting for Nell to answer. I was stupid to come. It’s a fool’s errand. Ozone sparkles in the air. Seagulls, white and shrill, are lined up on the roof. Someone somewhere is practising the recorder. I can’t imagine Zach here. It is all sharpness and radiance. No dark corners to slide into.

  ‘Live in the moment,’ he used to say. ‘Never go back.’

  I am about to turn and run away when Nell opens the door, breathless. On her shoulder lies a tiny baby, a shock of dark hair, purple cheek against white muslin.

  ‘Oh,’ I say before I can stop myself. Small babies sometimes catch me out.

  She smiles and opens the door to let me in, making a gesture to indicate the baby is asleep. She is plumper in the face than I remember and her thick brown hair is longer. She is wearing red woolly tights and a knitted green dress. We greet each other, as quietly as we can, and I follow her along a narrow passage, straining my ears, and down a few stairs into the kitchen.

  I look around for clues. It is an untidy room – washing-up in the sink, piles of paper on the work surfaces. Parrot tulips, in different colours, spill from a jug on the table. The kitchen units are pale grey; one wall is peacock blue. A huge corkboard is pinned with household detritus: letters and phone numbers, a child’s drawings. No sign of Zach – no oil paints or rolls of paper. I check the backs of the pine chairs at the table for a messenger bag, casually slung. But there are just kids’ clothes and tea towels, and a man’s zip-up fleece. Not his. Zach would never countenance fleece.

  On the floor, a small, cross-legged boy in dungarees is building a tower with blocks of Lego. ‘And another one down,’ he chirrups as the tower collapses.

  Nell lays the baby carefully in a Moses basket in the window. Outside, up some steps, is a small garden.

  Would you conceal a man from his wife if you had children in the house?

  ‘Lizzie,’ Nell says, turning. ‘I’m so sorry about Zach. It’s just awful. But it is lovely to see you again.’

  She stretches out her arms. I move towards her for the statutory hug – the bereaved are embraced a lot – but she turns, just as I reach her, to throw the muslin over the back of a chair.

  ‘Such a lovely baby,’ I say, to cover my confusion. ‘Boy or girl?’

  We both peer in. ‘Girl,’ Nell says. ‘Gladys.’

  ‘Gladys. I love those old-fashioned names. Clever of you to find one that hasn’t been used up.’

  Nell doesn’t respond. ‘She’s six weeks,’ she says, and adjusts the baby’s blanket. Above it a tiny fist furls. I stroke the baby’s head, touch her hand, which grips my finger.

  ‘You and Zach – you didn’t have children?’ Nell asks.

  ‘No.’ A tug of discomfort, a stirring.

  ‘Coffee,’ Nell says, straightening up. ‘And then a good old catch-up.’

  She rattles around with the kettle, fetching the mugs down from a cupboard, asking about my journey, apologising because she meant to make a cake but didn’t have time, instructing Pidge instead to dig out those ‘yummy’ biscuits from the treat jar. ‘Right, right, right,’ she keeps saying, ticking off the sequence of small actions that are required. I watch her, checking her eyes and the muscles at the corner of her mouth, for any indication. I don’t think she would have asked whether we had children if Zach was here. But still – her manner is odd, a strain runs beneath the surface. She knows something.

  Finally, clearing the table with her elbow to make space for two mugs of coffee and a plate of oat crunchies, she sits down. ‘Jolly good,’ she says, half sighing. ‘So.’ She looks at me and then quickly away. ‘How utterly sweet of you to come and visit me.’ I hadn’t noticed how posh she was last time – she’d seemed more Estuary than Bloomsbury. Parenthood, I’ve noticed, often brings out people’s true origins.

  ‘I wish we had seen more of you,’ I say, taking a sip. ‘We had that nice lunch, and then . . . I don’t know. Life took over.’

  ‘God. Yes. It’s so close, Brighton from London, but psychologically . . . weekends we just seem to flop. And then having kids – bloody hell, you never have any time for anything.’

  ‘Zach wasn’t great at communication,’ I say, still testing the waters. ‘Some people have a knack with friendship. He didn’t. I think he longed to see more of the people he loved. I don’t know what stopped him. Pride, perhaps. Shyness.’

  Nell laughs, but there’s a brittle edge to it. I look at her carefully. ‘OK, well, not shyness,’ I say.

  ‘Maybe not shyness,’ she repeats.

  Is she trying to tell me something? ‘He did compartmentalise his life, though, didn’t he?’ I say, still scrutinising her features. ‘Work, Cornwall, childhood, the Isle of Wight . . .’

  ‘The Isle of Wight?’ She removes her hand from her chin, tucks a hank of hair behind her ear.

  ‘Where he grew up,’ I say.

  ‘I thought it was Wales.’

  ‘Isle of Wight. I think.’ Is she being purposefully vague? ‘Did he not talk to you about it?’

  ‘Not really.’ She shakes her head.

  How well, then, did she really know him? I think about his head in my lap, my hands in his hair. The well of unhappiness he would decant, cup by cup. The terrible underlying reasons for his behaviour – how his father woul
d fixate on some aspect of his mother’s appearance, or cooking, how he tortured her physically and mentally. And Zach, poor Zach, an only child, desperate for his father’s approval, watching, powerless to intervene, carrying those images into his life as an adult, caught up but desperate to break free. How could I blame him for how he sometimes treated me?

  ‘It wasn’t a great childhood,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, really? I know they died a long time ago, but I thought they were loaded?’

  ‘Big house – Marchington Manor. Nannies. Posh school. Yacht club. All worth nothing if, behind closed doors, your father is a violent alcoholic and your mother is too weak to stand up to him.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’ She brings her knees up to lean against the table: ‘He must have loved you very much, Lizzie, to have been able to open up to you. I’m so sorry,’ she says awkwardly, ‘you know . . . a terrible loss, it’s such a shame.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I sigh, rub my face with the tips of my fingers. She’s just embarrassed, I realise, that’s why she has seemed odd. I forget how bereavement can make people uncomfortable.

  I sigh again. I have such a sense of deflation, I want to cry. ‘You and Pete meant a lot to him, too,’ I manage to say.

  ‘Did we?’ Her eye has been caught by a rogue tulip, a pink one. She takes it out and cocks her head to study the arrangement.

  ‘You were the only people he still saw from Edinburgh. I didn’t go to uni. I studied librarianship on a day-release course. But I know the friends you make at university are important and—’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t really from university that we knew each other,’ she says, putting the pink tulip back in a different position, next to an orange one.

  ‘Wasn’t it?’ I lean forward. ‘I thought you studied fine art together? I thought Zach and Pete were the only two mature students on your course.’

  ‘Pete was a mature student. He and I both studied fine art. But Zach didn’t.’

  ‘What did he study then?’ Blood infuses my cheeks. ‘Wasn’t it fine art? A different sort of art?’